Chez, good idea to leave the luring part aside for a while. What I'm wondering though, is exactly what the function of an adopter/godfather would be.

Is it to prohibit the new member from (unconsciously) spamming and pointing out when he has in PMs and such?

Or is it just a way to create friends quickly so that they will stay active and won't become another sleeping account?

I think if we're actually going for this, we should seriously include the first option. I don't see how else it would be useful to the forums (apart from preventing the sleeping accounts).